Evaluating Game-Based Environments for Army Aviation Collective Training

The U.S. Army Aviation Combined Arms Training Strategy highlights the use of Training Aids, Devices, Simulations, and Simulators (TADSS) as key, low cost tools to prepare Army aviation forces for future combat. A prominent component of this strategy is an increasing reliance on games-for-training. Game-based systems are capable of supporting training and assessment of mission procedures and situational judgement tasks. However, little research exists on the capabilities of the specific types of game-based systems for supporting Army aviation collective training. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of the Virtual Battlespace 3 and Microsoft Flight Simulator game-based training environments for a set of collective air assault mission tasks. Study participants consisted of previously qualified Army aviators recruited from various U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence (USAACE) schoolhouses located at Fort Rucker, Alabama. An air assault mission scenario, consisting of a set of operationally demanding flight procedures, mission procedures, and cognitive-decision making tasks, formed the basis of the evaluation. Study metrics consisted of mission performance rubrics, a physiological measure of heart rate variability, and a variety of subjective measures. Results indicate that, when compared to each other, both game environments provide comparable opportunities for collective training, allowing training resource decisions to be made based on other factors.